Ponderings...

When I was awake at 4 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, I read Punk's story Intersitial. I enjoyed it very much: I used this story to illustrate something in my apazine article about slash so I've been aware of this story since it first came out more than a year ago. I like Punk's writing style, and her characterization (particularly of Clark and Lex) is brilliant. She has a lovely hand with metaphors. Some of her good lines:

• Lex Luthor had returned to Metropolis and that world embraced him like Smallville never had.
  
  
• [Clark's] heart is pounding with what other people would call adrenaline, but, like with most things, he's not sure if that applies to him.
  
  
• He knows he has to cheer up because if Lois sees him like this she won't leave him alone until he explains himself. It's not that she's concerned about him, she just doesn't want him knowing anything she doesn't.
  
  
• Lex teasing him is both familiar and uncomfortable. They'd always treated each other like equals, like there wasn't half a decade and several million dollars between them. But they haven't talked in three years and Lex is treating him like a little brother, like he's fifteen again and delivering produce to the servants' entrance.
  
  
• He knows he has to cheer up because if Lois sees him like this she won't leave him alone until he explains himself. It's not that she's concerned about him, she just doesn't want him knowing anything she doesn't.
  
  
• "Where?" Clark asks, and he realizes he sounds too eager, but this is Lex, who knew Clark when he was a teenager and had all the subtlety of a hungry elephant. Anything is going to seem like an improvement from that.
  
  
• "You look confused." Lex is curious, head tilted, eyes measuring. Clark feels like a knot Lex is trying to untie.
  
  
• At twenty-eight, Lex is the head of a multinational corporation and one of the richest men in America. He moves in powerful social circles and owns most of Metropolis, but right now he looks like the orphan he is.
  
  

Some of my further favourite lines would be spoilers, so I'll skip them.

Now, this story also manages to include numerous things I just don't care for in stories: it's futurefic, it's in the present tense, it isn't heavy on structure or resolution, and it features Lois Lane. It seems a little odd that I dislike Lois Lane so much when I adore Chloe, but there are all sorts of reasons for it that have to do with past history, and the hyperactive, interfering Lois of this story is a very successful depiction of a character I just can't stand. It's more than just the hair.... I usually don't read stories when I see she is one of the characters in them.

The story also includes one of my least-favourite things in slashfic: but it was in general so good I liked the story anyway, just grit my teeth and carried on, appreciating the many things that were good about it.

Tomorrow Never Knows...

Remember how blackbyrde and I issued each other story challenges on August 4? We've written them now, and she, being more organized than I am, has posted hers on her LJ: it's Tomorrow Never Knows.

I loved it. Her Elladan and Elrohir are delightful - and delightfully sexy.

Jack Sparrow: dramatical?

I was reading the online transcription of the script of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and I noticed the text has Jack Sparrow saying to Governor Swann, "Well! I'm actually feeling rather good about this. I think we've all arrived at a very special place, eh? Spiritually, ecumenically, dramatically?"

I always thought he said, "Spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically," which always struck me as hilarious - and not a question on his part, either. More of a directive.

Another "Pirates" line...

Okay, I think we're pretty much agreed that Jack Sparrow says 'grammatically', which is what my ears hear.

What about Mr. Gibbs' line when Jack wakes him up by tossing a bucket of water over him? I'm told (and the transcript says) he says "Mother's love! Jack!" but my ears always hear "My first love! Jack!"

He was a wonderful character too, but then - aren't they all?